Note: This post was written in 2007 and I was in a different place mentally and emotionally. The recovery I’ve been through from 2022 on has changed my views on a lot of things, and I can critique myself effectively. I’ll do that in a modernized version of this post which I will link when it is complete. Please take my lack of recovery into account when you read this.
With that said, I did insert a few remarks about codependency in here, but it deserves more.
Around me is the specter of death, physical frailty, and the taint of mental illness.
I’m not in the habit of admitting weakness and fallibility but I am at that point now. I am spread too thin. I made a conscious effort to get rid of superfluous time sinks from my life last year. Everyone who wasn’t vitally important *and* respectful of my person and my life was told in no uncertain terms that I didn’t want to interact with them any longer. A few people had taken my willingness to listen and to accept a minimum of abuse from them, or others, to mean that I was weak and manipulable. They learned differently. No one took this well, but I felt it necessary. I am aware, however, that I did not go far enough.
My ex-wife has approached me lately about her own issues. It appears that she is losing control and spiraling down into clinical depression. Staying up late, waking up late, missing appointments, making decisions without her husband and angering him to the point where he’s talking divorce. Their sex life has ended. She admits she finds him unattractive and married him for stability and someone to cuddle with.
More Codependency
I can’t help her. I give her some very limited advice but I can’t bring myself to tell her that she’s going to end up divorced within a couple years at the rate she is going. No matter what she does, almost. The damage is already done. She’s deathly afraid of being alone, and I’m afraid nothing can alter that conclusion at this point. You don’t start interacting with someone sexually after you’ve decided they are unattractive, at least not until a long separation – I know that from my own experiences with her. She won’t tell the truth to her own shrinks, though, so I don’t expect any changes. If she contorts into a shape that makes him happy, she will fall off the wagon mentally. It’s a catch-22 of the worst sort.
This becomes my business because of my children who reside with her. They are going to require help. They may require me to take them actively into my home if she lets her life completely collapse, as it appears to be going now. Then I’ll be dealing with the inevitable attempts to get me back. As if they haven’t already begun, I would wager, even though I slammed the door shut on that possibility several years ago. This is just a bad situation. As long as she was comfortably ensconced in her relationship, I no longer had to be concerned about her. That blessing of peace is ending now.
Crohn’s And RA
My daughter Normina has Crohn’s. She was diagnosed last September. She’s been through several regimens of (very expensive) treatment and is responding well. However, one wouldn’t wish a chronic disease upon anyone, least of all this incredible young lady. Her mother bitches about her bouts of anger. Umm, mom, the girl’s in the throes of puberty, welcome to reality.
I am in awe of Normina’s resilience and ability to assume mature attitudes at such a young age (12). The girl won’t show pain to you, grits her teeth and just goes on. I tell her I am proud of her at every instant possible. She is the mother that my younger daughter needs to have, caring for her within every reasonable measure, making sure Shartbox is never left behind, always has her coat and shoes, and behaves well. The things that their slightly unstable mother just can’t handle. And she’s still a girly girl too. Never mind the straight A’s in school. And a social life.
Normina
Normina is living proof of the power of my stepfather’s child-rearing axioms – harsh punishment tempered by actively giving children as much responsibility as they can handle. She is building into the kind of woman just like her cousins (who were raised mostly by my parents after my brother’s death), one of whom is in her first year of a masters in criminology (and a stunning hottie to boot) and the other is a schoolteacher with an excellent rapport with children.
The wonderful part about my stepfather’s wisdom is that it works in hostile parenting environments by creating strong character in children even if you don’t see them all that much. My nieces were living with a potential sexual abuser who their mother divorced only when the youngest was 17, after the risk had been apparent for almost a decade. We spent years being ready to kick the ever-loving shit out of that piece of crap, and steeled both the girls against his advances. And my children live in a hostile environment of their own, though I have no question that their mom loves them, I do question if she is capable of keeping them secure on her own.
Inculcating Codependency
Normina is my agent, whether she knows it or not, and has proven much more deserving of my trust than her mother. It won’t work forever, or for all things, but her blossoming into a sharp intellect and a reliable and good person has undone much of the error I made in not seeking custody of them in the first place. She’ll know someday, along with a lot of other things I am saving for when she reaches adulthood.
End Of My Relationship
I don’t have a girlfriend. That is, I don’t fuck anyone. I don’t have any kind of sexual relations with anyone and haven’t since August 20 of last year. That said, I do cohabitate with someone. I looked on it as a temporary arrangement so I could pay off some credit cards faster than I might have otherwise. At which time we’d part ways, since I was done with her.
Her bald infidelity in the past sealed the deal for me, as if I needed more. The harm that this person has inflicted on me over the years through her mental problems is painful to recount. So I’m not going to. I’d had no reason to end the cohabitation thing because it was benefiting me financially – my end date was somewhere in the May area. I just hold her at arm’s length and survive a bit longer, and all will be well.(1)
I keep this subject intensely quiet because every friend I have and every family member is disappointed when I suggest that I even talk to her, never mind having her living with me. I look at it this way: she pays half the rent. She pretends to her family that we still are dating, but it’s really a show. I refuse comment – they know about her infidelity and her family is conscious of the delusional nature of her beliefs, but denial seems to be the order of the day in the face of the current troubles.
Darlene’s Mom
Well, I now regret my inaction on this point until now. I made a huge mistake not getting her the hell out 3 months ago. Her mother is in a hospital bed a couple miles away, inside their house. Hospice is coming daily. Her liver is swollen up to gargantuan proportions from an estrogen-reactive breast cancer that spread from the obvious locus to her lungs and liver. She has a few weeks, maybe a couple months left.
I feel really sorry for her mom, she’s a fighter, 10 years in and she’s still there, after a number of occasions when it looked like she was going to succumb. But this time is different, nothing is working. She’s refusing standard chemo and wants a wonder drug, and if there isn’t one, she’s willing to pass on now. No new treatments remain. At least nothing that is at a high trial level with the FDA.
I was scrubbing out her mom’s refrigerator last night (which needed the cleaning badly) and considering the fact that I was working my ass off trying to ease her passage from the world and be supportive towards her daughter when I’ve already stated I’m going to cut her out of my life (I haven’t been that blunt, but I did say I wanted to review living arrangements) after her mother passes on (or improves sufficiently to be out of danger).
Darlene’s Troubles
As for the ex – complete wreck. She’s been to 3 shrinks in the last week. She is taking all sorts of antidepressants and sleeping pills. I can sympathize with the shock of realizing the mortality of your parents – I was no gem when my dad died. She sought out some help. I am glad. Her mood is pretty much stabilized, but her behavior has not changed much, still release-seeking, still dominated by online gaming. She’d do the same thing all over again given half a chance at my heart.
My decision is right and true, and it’s only a degree of guilt and wish to ease a traumatic period for her entire family that causes me not to pull the trigger. This is the place where the greatest easing of my life will happen, and sadly enough it will likely be by the death of another. So I am waiting and doing my duty until then.
Salty Returns
I have a friend, once a lover. I’ve known her for a decade. She is quite a bit older than I. The story is long and I have never told it in full to anyone. Our bond is our secret. The only other person with a clue of our closeness is her daughter, and that only a clue. I won’t tell any tales of our moments of connection. Just let it be known that they happened. She’s the most unique woman I have ever met, and I have been through a lot of women. She remains the one who I continue to get along with better than any other. Her only issue is being geographically undesirable, which is why she’s now a ‘friend’ rather than anything else.
She’s a hospice nurse, a kind person and a person with features which make any conversation with her a joy. Her day is spent performing palliative care on those who are close to death. I can’t encapsulate what it is that she has that makes her special in any prose I might attempt.
She is vivacious, vivid, gentle, accepting of my flaws, celebratory of my strengths, placid in trial and strong of will. A single mother without regrets. Religious without being overbearing about her faith. Earthy and sexual while retaining all those traits. More interesting than I am. She commands respect even though I have known her for so long – no other woman save my mother has done so.(2) I have done deeds for her and she for I. We’ve done ill to each other at times but the love and respect never died. In fact, if there’s a woman I love in this world, this is the one.
Salty’s Cancer
Well, this friend is undergoing her third bout with cervical/uterine cancer. The last was 7 years ago and was arrested by a procedure at the time. This time it looks like a rather large uterine tumor has grown in the last few months, but the results will be a few days more in coming. Then it is treatment options.
I’m being as supportive as possible. I have let her down in the past attending to local floozies. I cannot and will not let her down now. I’m hoping her treatment goes well, I can go and visit sometime later this spring and have my house cleared out by then.
Last Vestiges Of Atlanta
Lastly, work is a pain in my ass. I have about 500 hours of work scheduled for March. Do the math and you realize that normal humans work 160 hours a month or so. So it’s a month of um…24 hour days.
Plus a couple of weekends.
Also, I have to do a cross-country travel thing from 15 March to 2 April, pretty much nonstop. Since the last time I left the house for that long, the ex had some guy in there crapping on my toilet and wearing my clothes, I’m quite a bit leery about that as well.
Maintaining my own sanity is the hard part, until I can get her out of my house and start addressing some of this other stuff. I am coming back to Jersey next weekend for a couple days to see the kids, then it’s off on my cross-country trip.
Have no idea how I’m going to make it through the next four weeks with things as they are. I am sure I will ultimately make it, though. There is so much risk that can’t be anticipated that I am starting to feel anxiety. Anxiety is something that is not common for me. There is also no one to shoulder any portion of my burden for me. It’s all on me. The usual.
Notes
- I am conscious this was/is a huge error. I know that. For someone I loved once, I am a soft touch. I probably still do love her. I rationalize it out via self-interest, but I know that rationalization is bullshit.
- People reading something into this are probably right. I am certainly no mama’s boy – I have crossed her wisdom more often than not, and in fact our relationship now is mostly me doing the telling and her doing the listening. As it should be, I’m an adult, and she knows I’m as stubborn as she is, after years of learning. I think she gets a certain sense of pleasure out of the fact that I became as difficult, hard-nosed and cynical as she wished. But she IS an intensely strong woman, and very few others can compare with her. Most girls I’ve brought home wilt in her presence (including the last 3 or so…). My family is rather cutthroat at first, and only if you can pass the hazing with grace are you admitted.
